A Deadly Encounter

  Today, I will be discussing with you guys an encounter that occurred to me not to long ago.  I believe this happened about 5 years ago, when i was 15.  I live in a certain part of the United States in where we experience all four seasons.  This particular year winter hit us pretty hard.  However, as a 15 year old teen, I was happy to see all the snow fall and even more delighted because school was closed for about 2 days straight with delayed openings following after.  My brother and I love playing in the snow, no matter how cold it is outside you will always find us out there.  Thus, because of  the snow falling my mother told us not to go outside because it was extremely cold.  In the days to come, I would realize that I should have listened to my mom.

  According to Robert W Derlet, MD, he states that the Influenza is a common infectious disease.  It is a highly contagious airborne disease that causes an acute febrile illness and results in variable degrees of systemic symptoms, ranging from mild fatigue to respiratory failure and death.  At first, I felt like I had nothing but a cold, however, I would soon realize that was not the case.  Two days would pass and my "cold" would not go away, even while taking medicine.  Chills from my neck down followed with severe headaches and body aches.  At this point, I knew I had the flu.  I have experienced the flu before, but never like this.  I lasted with the flu for about a week and on the final days of recovering my temperature rose to 103.  As a result of the high temperature I ended up going to the hospital and got the right medication I needed.  To end, we need to keep in mind, that even though we could just have the flu we need to take it serious.  If I would have stayed at home thinking that this would pass on it's own, I could probably be dead right now.  

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/219557-overview#a0101